Recollections of an Unsuccessful Seaman. Dave Creamer
man wearing a bowler hat when down came my suitcase from the luggage rack straight onto his head. I must say he took it extremely well. When his face appeared again from under his crushed bowler, he told me that he lived in Margate and that I shouldn’t worry too much because they were used to things falling on them in Margate. That’s the spirit! It being a hot summer afternoon and with the ladies telling me I should be wearing khaki, I left the carriage with its 13 other passengers at the next stop and travelled the rest of the way first class.
I can never understand why civilian strangers are allowed to wander around Portsmouth dockyard in wartime when it is impossible to enter the docks at Avonmouth without showing some identity papers. Why there should be no security at such an important place as Portsmouth Naval Dockyard completely baffles me. The dockyard officials will say they have their own methods and know very well who is in the yard, but that is simply rubbish. It is the easiest thing in the world for a civilian in plain clothes to gain entry into the yard, walk all around and walk out again, particularly during the hours of darkness. The fact of the matter is red tape; everything must be done in a certain way, however ridiculous.
It has been said that information on vessel movements in the Bristol Channel is as leaky as the lifeboats of some cargo steamers. We were once given an immediate top-secret job and rushed round from Southampton to Avonmouth, with our sealed orders regarding our next port to be opened at sea. However, when the third officer travelled to Bristol the night before sailing, he was told by three different people that the ship was bound for Dublin. Someone told us exactly the same thing in the locks before entering the Bristol Channel. When the envelope was opened off the Welsh coast, Dublin was our destination!
On one voyage, after reaching Trevose Head off Devon, we were sent back to anchor in Barry roads for ten days, so intense was the activity of the enemy submarines at the mouth of the Bristol Channel. This was one of the most dangerous months of the war with the food supply in the country running very low. For the navy, it was a time of great worry and strain as they concentrated their full forces to save the country from starvation. On one particular trip, a destroyer, or what was left of it after hitting a mine, was made fast alongside. Fifty-two lives were lost – a ghastly mess – and yet the dividends for the merchant shipping companies still boom.
We make several trips from France to Newport with millions of empty shell cases. Despite it being winter with the weather really cold and windy, the women and girls employed to stack the shells onto the quay like to dance about on top of the 20-foot piles dressed only in low-necked blouses, skirts, and thin stockings. Perhaps the repartee from the few men working aboard is enough to keep them warm, but the sight gives us mere sailormen an attack of the shivers!
I must say we are not in an enviable position on board the ship during the air raids in the French ports with the docks being a target, but it is safer to stay aboard than to seek the shelter of a dugout ashore. During the war Dunkirk had 214 air raids with 7,514 projectiles dropped onto the town, which goes to show the French ports in 1917 were none too healthy places to visit. One winter’s evening, when the ship was anchored off Calais, a destroyer hailed us with orders to shift our anchorage position to as close inshore as possible as they were expecting a raid by enemy destroyers. Very nice too, for we were between the devil and the deep blue sea so to speak. It turned out to be an air raid instead with their target a large oil tanker at anchor nearby. I watched this raid, and a fine sight it was, whilst sharing a drop of whisky with the captain. Turning in a little later, I slept well despite the noise, so there couldn’t have been much wrong with me in those days. It isn’t the danger or a bit of hardship that causes the loss of sleep; it is the fear of unemployment in peacetime and the lack of overtime that does the damage.
In the spring of 1918, the vessel is ordered round to Barry, where 2,000 tons of permanent sand ballast are discharged, her troop quarters scrapped, and the ship turned into a collier. The good times are over.
As the chief officer, I sometimes have the tedious job of censoring the mail, which includes my own letters to my wife. It seems a senseless exercise to censor my very own ramblings, because I know all the rules, but the letters won’t arrive home unless they bear the marks and deletions of the official ship’s censor. Having said all that, some of the correspondence between our West Indian crew and the local Welsh ladies needs a great deal of censoring, believe you me!
The mate’s job in a tramp steamer (or does it sound better if I call myself the chief officer?) is never pleasant when loading a cargo of coal in Barry dock. This time it is worse than usual with the continuous rain making the thick coating of coal dust that covers the decks from bow to stern very beastly. The quaysides are hidden under a filthy black slush and the docks look bleak and gloomy.
At frequent intervals, day or night, we must warp the vessel along the quay to allow the fixed coal loading chutes to work another hatch. We have only four West Indian sailors in a watch, so two must be at each end of the vessel when she is shifting with me assisting in handling the greasy wire rope moorings. A West Indian crew seems the only one available at the moment, but they are proving to be not at all suitable and will take advantage of the situation whenever they can. With regard to the West Indians and the Caribbean islanders, the Sailing Directions state:
They do not undertake any kind of work but are content to loll about the beaches, or sleep in their little grass huts, from one week’s end to another. Their extreme want of energy and their existence as far as alimony goes is a mystery to the European.
I cannot blame the crew for wanting to loll about the beaches, but they can’t do it here; my job is to keep them awake and to try to get a little work done occasionally. With the frequent shifting of the ship under the coal chutes, there are no regular meals on board. As usual, the ship’s chandler supplies the stores at the last moment, but because it is after 5 p.m., the crew doesn’t want to take them on board. The chief officer has his hands full with one thing and another; the last of the cargo is being shipped and the loadline must be carefully watched to ensure the vessel is not overloaded, he must keep an eye on the seamen in case they get away ashore and jump ship, and he must watch the stores closely to see nothing is stolen.
The disciplinary rules and regulations for this class of merchant ship during the latter stages of the war became peculiar and unclear. It seemed that the crew could do more or less what they liked, including refusing to carry out a quite legitimate order. They could not, however, refuse to sail the ship. In the event of any trouble, the Naval authorities merely referred you to the police and the police referred you back to the Naval authorities!
Even in cases of rank insubordination and assault, as long as they did not refuse to sail, the law would have nothing to do with it. It was an entirely different kettle of fish if a hard case officer assaulted a member of the crew, just see what happened then! The truth of the matter, and I can understand the reasons behind it, is that the ship must sail at all costs and without delay. Hard lines on the master and officers of these poorer class boats with their West Indian crews – the ship must sail.
One way or another, the ship leaves the locks on time loaded with 6,000 tons of coal under her hatches and eight railway wagons and two seaplanes on deck. I have had only three hours rest in the last 48 hours, so when the orders are received to put the paravanes over the side on this blowy night, I feel inclined not to fool about with them. It is really unfortunate that a slight heave on a wire at the wrong moment rendered the apparatus temporarily useless. I have no choice but to go and lie down for an hour or two! The ship is only going round to Milford Haven, a seven-hour run, to join a convoy there. We are, of course, under sealed orders, but everyone seems to know we are bound for Port Said.
The convoy presents an imposing spectacle leaving Milford Haven: 27 steamers of all types with our ship in the middle of them. The collection is more like a flock of alarmed sheep than a fleet of vessels, with no one following their directions properly for getting into formation; we also had a job finding our place. One way or another everyone eventually gets into their correct position and